Foreign Rights Management - Getting What They Promised

Far too many times, experienced publishers, large and small, lament about foreign rights with comments like "We have to fight to get the advance. Then, once we get it, we never hear from the foreign publisher again. We never know what’s going on. It’s not worth it." I can’t help but think to myself, "Whose fault is that? You’re in a business. Don’t you pay attention?" Would those same publishers ignore their receivables from any other source? Here’s an example. A client mentioned he had heard indirectly that one of his books–a title he had licensed about two years earlier to a foreign publisher via a large and highly regarded rights agency in its country–was doing quite well. When asked what royalties he had earned, he was embarrassed to say he didn’t know. Now mind you, this is a book by a well-known author of many New York Times best-sellers, a book that itself had made the Times list. Amazingly, the head of this well-established and successful publishing house hadn’t even a clue about the royalties from this foreign rights transaction, or any others. An e-mail was then sent to the foreign agent, who in turn contacted the foreign publisher, who subsequently informed us that "Yes, the book is doing very well, and, oh, by the way, you have $XX,XXX (five figures) due in royalties which we will wire immediately. Sorry about the oversight." Despite the fact that organizing and managing foreign rights matters is not brain surgery, this is a fairly typical scenario. Can you avoid it and prosper? Yes, but because foreign rights relationships are complicated, you’ll have to pay a good deal of attention to detail. Here are a few tips. Step #1: Locate and Exercise Responsibility First, you must commit to making foreign rights sales a viable and profitable part of your publishing enterprise and therefore agree that they require a proactive and systematic approach. Someone within your organization must take full responsibility for managing foreign rights. Depending on the size of your publishing house, and/or the number of foreign rights transactions involved, one person may be able to handle management alone; maybe that person will need to delegate certain elements of the process to others. In any case, some one person must take full responsibility to ensure that foreign rights transactions are administered efficiently. That means many, many follow-ups at predetermined times as dictated by the terms of your license agreements with the foreign publishers and perhaps their agents. Step #2: Organize the Documents Where License to Publish agreements are concerned, policing payments requires knowing when they are due and for what. Therefore, you have to gather all your foreign rights contracts, arrange them by title, and then, within title, by chronological order. Step #3: Master the Terms Although it seems obvious that you must read your contracts, many publishers don’t. More than that, you must understand what the various clauses in your agreements mean, especially the performance clauses to which the foreign publishers must adhere. Among many other important legal elements, a foreign rights contract will have clauses that clearly identify: a. The amount of the advance, when it must be paid, and the royalty percentages paid at varying sales levels b. The quantity of the first printing c. Requirements regarding copyright registration and approval of the copyright page of the foreign edition d. Sales and royalty reporting periods (which are usually semiannual but sometimes annual) for all revenue obtained by the foreign publisher from all qualifying sources e. Royalty payment due dates f. The time period in which the foreign edition must be published (usually between 12 and 18 months) g. The reasons that may cause automatic termination of the agreement. Step #4: Chart Tasks The best and easiest way to ensure that all the necessary foreign rights work gets done is with a spreadsheet. Create a separate spreadsheet for each title you have a foreign rights licensing agreement about. Each horizontal line of the spreadsheet should list a foreign publisher with which you have agreements for that title. Each vertical column should list one of the "performances" that the foreign publisher must adhere to according to the contract. Enter both scheduled completion dates and actual completion dates. Then plan your follow-ups accordingly and don’t stop them until you have confirmed completion of all performance elements of the contract. If you use an easy-to-maintain spreadsheet to enter data about your agreements, you should be able to manage your foreign rights deals for maximum revenue. This is the last in the series of articles about foreign publishing rights by Publishing Consultant, Bob Erdmann, who is a five-decade veteran of book publishing and a two-term past president of Independent Book Publishers Association (formerly Publishers Marketing Association).. He created the PMA Trade Distribution Program,which gained more than $20 million in sales for members. Through his popular Frankfurt/Foreign Rights Program he has negotiated more than 2,000 foreign rights sales for clients. Visit www.bob-erdmann.com to learn more or contact him via bob@bob-erdmann.com or 707-729-9200.
	What action are YOU going to take to take? Until next time, Paulette - ever learning www.CollectionOfExperts.com www.PublishingProsperity.com www.tipsbooklets.com Follow me www.twitter.com/pauletteensign

Foreign Rights - a First-Hand Accounting

The following is a post placed on a publishing list serv to which I subscribe. 'Thought you'd like to see some first-hand accounting of foreign rights experiences, and the interaction the author had with our most recent Expert, Bob Erdmann. We also had a couple members of www.PublishingProsperity.com contact Bob about representing their booklets at this year's Frankfurt Book Fair.

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Hi Susan, foreign rights are hard to predict. I have a Self-Help book and I
used a foreign rights agent (Bob Erdmann) for about 4 years and he got my book
in 55 countries. The funny thing about that is that the book is only so so
in the US. You just never know how it will be received overseas, and it
changes each year. There is very little correlation between what sells in the
US and overseas. What was hot in one country is cold the next and then
another area warms up to the book, it is crazy. I stopped pursuing foreign
rights for my book as I thought I had covered most of the areas it had
merit, and the world book market seems to be in decline right now.

Here is contact info for Bob Erdman boberdmann@aol.com I believe it will
cost around $200 to have him take your book to Frankfurt.

Edward W. Smith Attention Self-Help publishers Offer 2 Free life-coaching
sessions with an experienced, reputable life coach to purchasers of your
book, at no cost to you. A proven way to increase your book sales and offer
a $200 value to your customers, with no catches. Contact Theresa Smith at
201-568-0019, email, tsmith@brightmoment.com or visit
http://brightmoment.com/coaching.asp

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Are you thinking about exploring foreign rights or taking action on it? The choice is and always will be yours.

Until next time,
Paulette - realizing the value of balancing the plan with the action


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Foreign Rights - After They're Interested, What to Do

After You Get Them Interested

OK, you’ve proactively or reactively stimulated interest from foreign publishers and/or agents. They’ve requested review copies and probably asked for 90-day options while they reach their decisions.

Now you need to ship the book. Your best, most cost-effective shipping option is the U.S. Postal Service’s Global Priority Mail, which is available to most countries. It’s not nearly as expensive as FedEx, UPS, or Express Mail, but its packages will still arrive at most destinations within a week or so. Using cheaper ways to ship will mean that your book takes several weeks (if not months) to arrive, if it arrives at all.

Include a cover letter, asking the foreign publisher to confirm receipt of the review copy by email. Then follow up regularly. This is critical. Don’t be a pest, but keep in touch to prompt a decision, and maintain a status record of your follow-ups. It is always shocking to know how many publishers go to the expense and effort of sending a book overseas and then sit back and wait, complaining that they "never heard anything."

If you haven’t received confirmation that the book arrived after two or three weeks, follow up. Two or three weeks after you do receive confirmation, follow up again to see if prospects need more information or to relay some good news that will matter to them. When an option has only 30 more days to run, follow up once more to make sure they know the option is about to expire and to ask if they need a little more time. In other words, find legitimate reasons to keep in touch while pressing courteously for a decision.

Your prospect’s editorial people will decide whether they believe the book will travel and whether the content can be translated easily. The production people will determine printing, paper, and binding costs for their edition. The sales and marketing people will make judgments about whether it will sell in their country. And finally, the financial people will determine whether they can make a yen, peso, euro, mark, dinar, schilling, franc, yuan, renminbi, rupee, won, or two.

Responding to an Offer

If foreign publishers decide they do want to acquire the rights to your book, they will either make an offer or ask you for your terms. As in any negotiating situation, you should try to get them to make their offer first. Who knows, it might be better than you expected.

Publishing Consultant Bob Erdmann is a five-decade veteran of book publishing and a two-term past president of Independent Book Publishers Association (formerly PMA). He created the PMA Trade Distribution Program, which has gained more than $20 million in sales for members. Through his popular Frankfurt/Foreign Rights Program he has negotiated more than 2,000 foreign rights sales for clients. Visit www.bob-erdmann.com to learn more, or contact him via bob@bob-erdmann.com or 707/726-9200.

Which publication of yours is ready for foreign rights possibilities, and what systems do you have in place to follow up on the process?

Until next time,

Paulette - reminded of the importance of the entire process, from start to finish

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Foreign Rights - The Reactive Process

Proceeding reactively with foreign entails participating in the book fairs that are best for foreign rights activity. There are four:

Frankfurt International Book Fair - This is the granddaddy and most important of them all. Attended by 350,000-plus publishing people from every corner of the world, it is designed exclusively for buying and selling rights. If you can participate in only one fair, this is the one to choose. For more information: www.book-fair.com.

London Book Fair - Primarily focused on British booksellers and the U.K. publishing industry, it has gained some importance for foreign rights. To learn more: www.lbf-virtual.com.

BookExpo America - America’s book industry trade show has a section for meetings with foreign publishers and agents. See www.bookexpoamerica.com.

Bologna Children’s Book Fair - If you publish children’s books, this is a place to be. More information is available at www.bolognachildrensbookfair.com.

You can execute a purely reactive foreign rights strategy by letting the foreign publishers come to you at these book fairs, but you will do best by targeting and researching likely prospects before you go and making sure you have a chance to talk with them while you’re there.

(c) 2005, Bob Erdmann

Publishing Consultant Bob Erdmann is a four-decade veteran of book publishing and a two-term past president of PMA. He created the PMA Trade Distribution Program, which has gained more than $20 million in sales for members. Through his popular Frankfurt/Foreign Rights Program he has negotiated more than 2,000 foreign rights sales for clients. Visit www.bob-erdmann.com to learn more, or contact him via bob@bob-erdmann.com or 707/726-9200.

What are you most comfortable doing, a proactive or a reactive approach to foreign rights, or maybe a combination of both.

Until next time,

Paulette - looking for the easiest way to the largest bottom line

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Foreign Rights - The Proactive Process

Select the countries you feel would be most receptive to a particular book or booklet, remembering that what seems obvious may not be true. In fact, for example, Germany and Japan don’t want books about World War II. And, perhaps surprisingly unless you’ve been active in foreign rights markets for a while, countries like China, Indonesia, Eastern European nations, and India are now active rights-buyers.

Although there are other resources, your best prospecting aid in the beginning will be International Literary Market Place. This is an expensive directory, published by R.R. Bowker, that you may be able to find at your library and that you can access online on a limited or fee basis (see www.literarymarketplace.com). It lists nearly all the world’s publishers by country. Within each listing you will find information on the kinds of books they publish and contact information. Create a short list of the countries and publishers that you will want to contact. You may also want to target foreign agents, who will charge a commission; they are listed separately in ILMP under "Literary Agents."

Create a detailed Fact Sheet, including a small picture of the book’s cover. List the elements most important to a foreign publisher–U.S. sales, author credentials, compelling features, countries to which rights have already been sold, quotes from important reviewers, trim size, page count, copyright date, etc. Be succinct but thorough. Email the fact sheet to each selected foreign publisher and/or agent with a cover note asking them to contact you if they’re interested in your fine book. Interested publishers and agents will respond by asking for review copies.

(c) 2005, Bob Erdmann

Publishing Consultant Bob Erdmann is a four-decade veteran of book publishing and a two-term past president of PMA. He created the PMA Trade Distribution Program, which has gained more than $20 million in sales for members. Through his popular Frankfurt/Foreign Rights Program he has negotiated more than 2,000 foreign rights sales for clients. Visit www.bob-erdmann.com to learn more, or contact him via bob@bob-erdmann.com or 707/726-9200.

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Where are you considering going to develop foreign rights opportunities for your book or booklet? How are you preparing to do that?

Until next time,
Paulette - who combines proactive and reactive approaches for securing foreign rights deals

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What Foreign Publishers Are Looking For

The hot topics are psychology/self-help (which is always popular), business, personal development, personal finance, parenting, and anything with the word success in the title. Thousands of books on these topics have been published, so buyers abroad want books with unique angles, not just ho-hum, me-too books.

"Will it travel?" is a question we hear often, which means, Is the content universal, or appropriate just for America? Page count is also important. A 300-page book in American English would swell to more than 400 pages in German. Conversely, that same book would shrink to about 200 pages in most Asian languages.

Foreign publishers seek books and booklets that have excellent track records and are easily translated. The more work they would need to devote to their edition, the less interested they become. Although they prefer recently published books, it is most important that content be current and not likely to become obsolete quickly, like the content of travel books and computer books.

You can be proactive (by prospecting), reactive (by participating in book fairs), or both to start building your foreign rights revenue stream.

(c) 2005, Bob Erdmann

Publishing Consultant Bob Erdmann was the Expert we interviewed in February. He is a five-decade veteran of book publishing and a two-term past president of PMA (now IBPA. He created the PMA Trade Distribution Program, which has gained more than $20 million in sales for members. Through his popular Frankfurt/Foreign Rights Program he has negotiated more than 2,000 foreign rights sales for clients. Visit www.bob-erdmann.com to learn more, or contact him via bob@bob-erdmann.com or 707/726-9200.

How does your topic fit in with foreign rights sales? Does it travel well? If so, think about what your next steps are to expand your reach and your bottom line.

Until next time,

Paulette - who has appreciated the additional overseas sales over the years

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The Importance of Foreign Rights to the Bottom Line of an Independent Publisher - Part II

What is the market? Simply stated, there are tens of thousands of foreign publishers in nearly 400 countries. They are looking for books that will “travel”, meaning that the content will be applicable in their country as well as the United States. Too many references to American people, places, institutions, culture, etc. will not mean much to a reader in a foreign country. Books under 250 pages are perfect. A 250 page book in most European countries would swell to more than 330 pages, thus negatively affecting the production costs, retail price, and ultimately reducing potential sales. Conversely, a 250 page book in most Asian languages will shrink to under 175 pages because of the efficiency of the languages. The hottest categories always seem to be business, psychology/self help and other nonfiction subjects. But the foreign publishers are looking for books with specificity in those subjects, not just another “ho-hum, me-too” book. And not books that are obviously purely for the author’s self-gratification. It’s not enough for a business book to say “managing your business is a good idea”, the book needs to say specifically how to do it, and preferably with a unique angle. The countries that seem to be the most active recently are, but not limited to: China, Russia, Korea, Japan, Indonesia, Thailand, India and most of the eastern European nations.

You must make a commitment to foreign rights as an integral part of your publishing program. It doesn’t work to simply put your toe in the water once and decide if you like the temperature or not. I like to say that “it’s a marathon, not a sprint.” It’s not your one attempt, or your one deal, that creates a successful foreign rights program and consequently maximizing your investment. It’s the aggregate of frequent attempts and the many deals that will result from those attempts. I have clients in my annual Frankfurt/Foreign Rights Program (http://www.bob-erdmann.com/foreign-rights.html) who, after only two or three years participating, have contracts with 8 or 10 or 14 different foreign publishers for a single book. Any one deal is nice, but multiply that one book times 8 or 10 or 14 and the additional revenue from that asset is quite significant.

The Frankfurt International Book Fair is acknowledged as the world’s main and most important venue for foreign rights. It’s the granddaddy of them all! If you had to choose only one book fair for your book(s) for foreign rights sales, Frankfurt would be the well-informed, unanimous choice. Housed in ten buildings (many three stories tall) it’s thirty times larger than the London Book Fair and almost fifteen times larger than BookExpoAmerica. And most important, it’s one-stop shopping. The nearly 400,000 publishing people from every corner of the world who attend the Frankfurt Book Fair are there for one reason only….to buy or sell foreign rights.

How much revenue can you expect? That, of course, varies. It could be a little or a lot and you must be realistic in your expectations. The value will vary from country to country and from book to book. And the long-term value depends on how well it sells in a given country, just like in America. I have represented books in my Frankfurt/Foreign Rights Program (http://www.bob-erdmann.com/foreign-rights.html) that have proven to be huge successes. An exceptional success I like to mention is the time one of my clients, a self-published author, received his first royalty check for $750,000 for the initial six month period from a Korean publisher. The other extreme is that I have had books in my Program that earned no royalty beyond the advance. Again, just like in America, it depends on how well your book sells. The foreign publisher wants your book to be successful, perhaps even more than you do. He will make every effort to accomplish that goal since he will have a substantial financial investment in his edition of your book since he will have already paid you an advance and incurred production, printing and marketing costs.

So treat your book as a financial asset, diversify your investment to protect your interests, and search for those other potential revenue streams. Why not begin with a risk-free, minimal cost, foreign rights effort.

Publishing consultant Bob Erdmann is a four-decade veteran of book publishing and foreign rights guru. He served two terms as president of Publishers Marketing Association (PMA - now Independent Book Publishers Association - IBPA) where he created many of its current popular programs. He has successfully negotiated more than 3,500 foreign rights sales for participants in his annual Frankfurt/Foreign Rights Program. For information go to (http://www.bob-erdmann.com/foreign-rights.html), email bob@bob-erdmann.com, or call (209) 586-1566.

Bob will be our Expert interviewed at www.PublishingProsperity.com today, Thursday, February 5.

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What expectations are realistic for you to factor into your bottom-line plans for foreign rights of your books, booklets, audio programs or any other intellectual property this year?

Until next time,

Paulette - who continues exploring more foreign rights opportunities years later

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The Importance of Foreign Rights to the Bottom Line of an Indpendent Publisher - Part 1

by Bob Erdmann

The most successful publishers and self-published authors I’ve worked with in my four+ decades in book publishing have been those who understood that (1) publishing is a business, not a hobby; (2) have been tireless promoters of their books; and (3) fully realized that a book should be considered as a financial “asset” and as such it should gain the largest return on investment as possible. Number 3 means fully maximizing multiple revenue streams from that asset and a very meaningful revenue stream, and one that is minimally cost intensive, is foreign rights. That’s right, minimally cost intensive! The foreign publisher bears all the costs involved and pays you for the right to translate and publish your book in their country. That’s a pretty good deal, a “no-brainer”, right?

OK, you’re probably wondering “what’s this all about, how does it work?” It’s really pretty simple. Foreign publishers world wide are aggressively seeking books to publish. More often than not, work by quality authors is simply not readily available in their countries so they seek acquisition of licensing rights to books already published in other countries, especially America. You, the American publisher (or self-published author) license the right to a foreign publisher to reprint, market and distribute your book in either English in English speaking countries, or translated into a foreign language in non-English speaking countries. The entire cost to do this is borne by the foreign publisher, who pays you an advance and royalty for this licensing right. This is found money for you and a very simple way to create a significant revenue stream from your financial asset—your book—thus helping to maximize the return on your investment.

Book publishing is now on a very fast track which makes the smaller, independent publisher vulnerable to the whims and fancies of a very fickle industry. Barnes & Noble and Borders will be the first to tell you that if your book doesn’t sell very, very quickly they won’t be carrying it much longer than a cup of coffee. The same is true with Ingram and Baker & Taylor, or your distributor if you use one. As a wise investor, you need to diversify your financial assets. Build a foreign rights revenue stream to protect your number one asset!

(To be continued Thursday - addressing what the markets are)

Publishing consultant Bob Erdmann is a four-decade veteran of book publishing and foreign rights guru. He served two terms as president of Publishers Marketing Association (PMA - now Independent Book Publishers Association - IBPA) where he created many of its current popular programs. He has successfully negotiated more than 3,500 foreign rights sales for participants in his annual Frankfurt/Foreign Rights Program. For information go to (http://www.bob-erdmann.com/foreign-rights.html), email bob@bob-erdmann.com, or call (209) 586-1566.

Bob will be our Expert interviewed this month at www.PublishingProsperity.com on Thursday, February 5.

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Whether it's books, booklets, audio programs or any other intellectual property, foreign rights can be a big boost to your bottom line. What products do you have that are candidates for foreign rights purchases?

Until next time,

Paulette - who has done several foreign rights deals

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